


Heartbeat

by Larrycanaryoh



Category: The End Of The Fucking World (TV), The End of the F'ing World, teotfw
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, I love my angsty traumatized boi, James thinks a lot, There's some swearing in here I guess, also peep the tiny Carry On reference, also tagging descriptions of the rape scene but like thats the show, and some minor descriptions of violence and vomiting, but if you don't know about that mention already then you probably shouldn't be here bc spoilers, but like if you've already seen the show then you're fine, oh yes also brief suicide ment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 09:33:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13385028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrycanaryoh/pseuds/Larrycanaryoh
Summary: "'I've seen you skating,' she said to me, 'You're pretty shit.' Nobody had ever spoken to me like that before, and I wanted to kill her for it."..."Now I think I'd do anything for her."(Or, an inside look into James' thoughts and feelings about Alyssa)





	Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

> hello don't tell my WIP I'm here
> 
> enjoy some feelings 123 go  
> _____________________

I think of Alyssa in heartbeats.

 

From the moment I stood there, a runny nosed kid, wide-eyed and watching my mother disappear under the choppy waves born of her own  _ fucked-up  _ swan-song, I felt my heart die: ceasing to beat, shriveling, turning  _ so cold _ that it went numb.

 

From the moment, then, that I clutched the leftover bread crumbs tightly in my chubby little fist as if that would stop her from slipping away before my eyes, I thought my heart would never beat again. That it never really had. Not the way I think it’s  _ supposed  _ to. I thought I had always been broken.

 

And I lived life that way: never feeling, never knowing... Obsessed with death, and the idea of bringing death upon others as my mother surely brought death to  _ the both of us _ that day. I’d be everything she made me: sick. Broken. A psychopathic  _ killer. I would always be this way. _

 

And from the moment I told Alyssa to fuck off that day in the shitty cafeteria of that shit school in a shithole town that could never have been enough for either of us, I was proven wrong: I was  _ changing,  _ and completely  _ fucked  _ in the best way possible, even though I didn’t know it yet.

 

“ _ I’ve seen you skating,”  _ she said to me,  _ “you’re pretty shit.”  _ Nobody had  _ ever  _ spoken to me like that before, and I wanted to kill her for it. Not that she made me angry then, it was more… I saw her as a challenge. I thought the spilling of blood from her pale, freckled skin could be my reward: a trophy for proving my own psychopathy. She was, in my mind, the only thing that would satisfy this bloodlust I felt inside of me.

 

But in that shitty ‘American’ diner, before we left… she made me smile for the first time. It was only a small, upward quirk of my lips, but still; I thought she was  _ funny _ . That was a miracle in itself, and it signified the beginning of something far larger than I ever expected.

_ Beat. _

 

When she asked me to run away with her, I told myself I was just biding my time, grooming her, playing with my food. But then in the car, she told me she wasn’t afraid, and the thumb of my mangled hand tapped on the steering wheel.

_ Beat. Beat. Beat. _

 

I went along with everything. I went along with  _ her.  _ And although I had multitudes of chances to kill Alyssa, it never felt quite  _ right _ , in the moment.

 

Her head thrown back in laughter, eyes closed, neck exposed. Perfect.

_ Beat. _

 

Sitting alone together, in the shadowy dark outside the café.  _ ‘Did something bad happen to you when you were small?’ _

_ Beat. _

 

I  _ almost  _ did it in the motel room. I waited outside the bathroom door with a knife and everything. But I heard her sob quietly, and suddenly I felt as though  _ she  _ had stabbed  _ me.  _ I told her I wanted her (partly because that's what she wanted to hear, and partly, maybe because I  _ did)  _ and then...

 

She was lying asleep in my arms, my lips pressed to her back, my nose buried in her hair. I remember being afraid to move, or to even _breathe._ She smelled like cheap motel soap.

_ Beat. _

 

I properly knew I was fucked by the time she brought that fucking twat Topher round: I had traded my knife for a vase of  _ flowers _ for Christ’s sake. Because of her.  _For her._

“ _ She is a fucking prick-tease bitch!”  _ Topher the twat stormed out the door.

_ Good _ . I went to Alyssa.

I waited outside the door for her, partly to give her space, and partly because I had no fucking idea what I was doing there.

 

By the time she fell asleep, I still hadn’t figured out if I wanted to kiss her or kill her, so I did neither. I lay down on the floor next to the bed, almost,  _ almost  _ holding her hand.

I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest:  _ no denying it now.  _ But the whole thing was still a complete mystery to me.

 

...And then...  _ he  _ showed up. He tried to…  _ hurt her. _

And I'd never been more fucking afraid in my life. My newly-resuscitated heart was pounding so hard I was sure it'd burst, and I'd die, leaving Alyssa alone with _him_. I knew I had to stop him, but I was shaking so hard I thought I might fumble the fucking knife. I didn't. I heard her screaming and crying and... _ _

 

The very moment I plunged the knife into his neck, (in the most lethal spot, in the jugular, just like I researched) I understood.

With bile rising to the back of my throat, I pulled the knife out, sending blood spurting everywhere like a sick fountain. I knew then that I had been wrong about myself all along. Because  _ killing… _ it isn’t what I thought it would be.  _ I’m  _ not who I thought I was. This was something uglier, more shameful and terrible than I ever thought it could be. To think I could  _ ever  _ have done this to Alyssa... it's mortifying. Biblically wrong. Yet I did it  _ for  _ her.  _ I think I would do anything for her. _

 

I know it's fucked up, but then, _I'm_ a little fucked up, aren't I? As I watched the man, twitching, dying, gagging on his own blood in front of me...in the back of my stunned mind, poking through the bloody, horrified haze engulfing me which was threatening to swallow me whole, I knew I never would have chosen differently. It's fucking terrible, but even as I looked him in the eyes, I knew I'd kill him over again, kill the _something_ inside of _me_ that died along with him over and over again, to protect her. I'm ashamed of what I've done, but I'm more ashamed that I didn't do it _sooner_ , before he'd gotten close enough to lay a single slimy fucking _finger_ on her at all. 

After he finally stopped writhing and gurgling, and finally went still, the reality of the situation really set in, and a new wave of panic took over me. I felt his horrible horrible eyes burning into me, and I wanted to get Alyssa away from that glassy, accusatory stare, away from his body, away from all of this. 

I looked at her, at the glistening blood sprayed over her freckles and her wide eyes, the blood that I had shed. The blood that should've been all over me. _How had she gotten in the middle of my fucked up, homicidal obsession?_ I knew I wasn't fit to touch her, and she wasn't in any state to be touched _by anyone_ she didn't explicitly choose, but still I felt the overwhelming urge to wipe the gore from her beautiful face with the sleeves of my sweater, and to pull her close to me. To _ hold _ her, and stroke her hair, now matted with disgusting, congealing blood; I longed to feel her heart beating, and tell her everything’s going to be alright, even though I had no way of knowing if it would be. I wanted to open my mouth and tell her I’d always protect her. 

 

But I don’t quite know how to say any of that just yet. Fuck, my mind is _still fucking reeling_ because  _ Jesus fucking Hell I’ve just killed someone. _

 

So when I do open my mouth, the bile in my throat comes the rest of the way up. Better than screaming, I suppose.


End file.
